We were in Monterey when the tornado struck, but our home was still in Saint Louis. On May 16th at 2:43 PM an EF0 twister first touched down about a mile east of the house, near the intersection of I-64 and I-170. It would stay on the ground for thirty minutes, as it headed northeast for twenty miles. The storm continued to strengthen as it went, becoming an EF1, with 95 MPH winds, as it passed a quarter mile north of our house. Heading east, it clipped the northwest corner of Forest Park. Growing as it went, it grew to be a mile wide and eventually attained EF3 status, with 152 MPH winds. Most of the damage that the storm caused was in North Saint Louis, a poorer and predominately black portion of the city, where five people were killed, the first tornado related fatalities in Saint Louis since 1959.

This storm struck almost four months ago, but we have been out-of-town since then. Yesterday, we walked in Clayton, the neighborhood north of us that was more affected than we were. Many of the century old oak trees that once lined the streets of this neighborhood are now gone. Most of these trees have left smoothly cut stumps, but a few have left ragged stumps, like the one pictured. Most noticeable in places is seeing sky, where once there were trees. Last night, we attended a dinner party, that took us further along the tornado’s path. Driving along Wydown, many of the stately mansions, with their slate roofs now have plastic coverings. The storm damaged so many of these slate roofs that these plastic shower caps are required as an interim solution. We drove pass the northwest corner of Forest Park and so many of the trees are now missing. Our only damage was a few small limbs, but I noticed today that there a much larger broken limb is still hanging up in one of our trees.